The European Union (EU) is set to release its 2030 Digital Compass, a plan which outlines the bloc’s strategies for minimising its dependence on Chinese and US technologies.

The news comes as the pandemic demonstrated Europe’s reliance on technology produced by non-European companies in key areas.

Goals outlined in the plan are said to include producing a fifth of all “cutting-edge” semiconductors by 2020 and building a quantum computer in the next five years.

The plan, first reported by Bloomberg, is set to be presented today by Margrethe Vestager, European Commission vice president, and Thierry Breton, EU industry chief.

Increasing the production of semiconductors was emphasised in the plan, as the deficit of these is currently slowing down global car production.

The plan called for the EU to produce around 20 per cent of the world’s semiconductors in value.

In addition, the plan pushed for increased investment in quantum technologies, emphasizing how these could be “a game changer” in medical research or expediting the speed of genome sequencing.

The EU also identified data sovereignty as a point of focus, and documents are said to show that 90 per cent of EU data is managed by US companies.

The EU proposed a movement towards edge computing and the introduction of 10,000 climate-neutral highly secure edge nodes to combat foreign reliance.

The plan also targeted that all populated areas in the EU would have a 5G connection by 2030, highlighting this as key.

The EU also called for increased international engagement while working towards connectivity targets, calling for more collaboration with India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

The report also proposed many skills-based targets, including “20 million employed ICT specialists in the EU, with convergence between women and men."

The EU plan will need approval from all 27-country countries and European Parliament before it can take effect.

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